Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Salam,
C-Span will today air the Arab American Emergency Summit on the Middle East Crisis organized by the Arab American Institute (AAI). The summit will take place today from noon to 3 P.M. C-Span will tape the event and air it later in the day. Exact time has yet to be decided. To view C-Span's schedule, please visit:http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/fullschedule.csp?timeid=212020054156.
The Emergency Summit will feature a town hall meeting hosted by Congressmen Nick Rahall and Darrell Issa and other members of Congress who want to hear about the situation in Lebanon and Gaza from the perspective of Arab Americans. Delegates will also meet with the State Department's Catherine Barry, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Overseas Citizens Services about the evacuation of the approximately 25.000 U.S. citizens trapped by the fighting.
Founded in 1985, the Arab American Institute (AAI) is a nonprofit organization committed to the civic and political empowerment of Americans of Arab descent. AAI provides policy, research and public affairs services to support a broad range of community activities. For more information on AAI, please visit www.aaiusa.org.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Who started?By: Gideon Levy
"We left Gaza and they are firing Qassams" - there is no more precise a formulation of the prevailing view about the current round of the conflict. "They started," will be the routine response to anyone who tries to argue, for example, that a few hours before the first Qassam fell on the school in Ashkelon, causing no damage, Israel sowed destruction at the Islamic University in Gaza.
Israel is causing electricity blackouts, laying sieges, bombing and shelling, assassinating and imprisoning, killing and wounding civilians, including children and babies, in horrifying numbers, but "they started."
They are also "breaking the rules" laid down by Israel: We are allowed to bomb anything we want and they are not allowed to launch Qassams. When they fire a Qassam at Ashkelon, that's an "escalation of the conflict," and when we bomb a university and a school, it's perfectly alright. Why? Because they started. That's why the majority thinks that all the justice is on our side. Like in a schoolyard fight, the argument about who started is Israel's winning moral argument to justify every injustice.
So, who really did start? And have we "left Gaza?"
Israel left Gaza only partially, and in a distorted manner. The disengagement plan, which was labeled with fancy titles like "partition" and "an end to the occupation," did result in the dismantling of settlements and the Israel Defense Forces' departure from Gaza, but it did almost nothing to change the living conditions for the residents of the Strip. Gaza is still a prison and its inhabitants are still doomed to live in poverty and oppression. Israel closes them off from the sea, the air and land, except for a limited safety valve at the Rafah crossing. They cannot visit their relatives in the West Bank or look for work in Israel, upon which the Gazan economy has been dependent for some 40 years. Sometimes goods can be transported, sometimes not. Gaza has no chance of escaping its poverty under these conditions. Nobody will invest in it, nobody can develop it, nobody can feel free in it. Israel left the cage, threw away the keys and left the residents to their bitter fate. Now, less than a year after the disengagement, it is going back, with violence and force.
What could otherwise have been expected? That Israel would unilaterally withdraw, brutally and outrageously ignoring the Palestinians and their needs, and that they would silently bear their bitter fate and would not continue to fight for their liberty, livelihood and dignity? We promised a safe passage to the West Bank and didn't keep the promise. We promised to free prisoners and didn't keep the promise. We supported democratic elections and then boycotted the legally elected leadership, confiscating funds that belong to it, and declaring war on it. We could have withdrawn from Gaza through negotiations and coordination, while strengthening the existing Palestinian leadership, but we refused to do so. And now, we complain about "a lack of leadership?" We did everything we could to undermine their society and leadership, making sure as much as possible that the disengagement would not be a new chapter in our relationship with the neighboring nation, and now we are amazed by the violence and hatred that we sowed with our own hands.
What would have happened if the Palestinians had not fired Qassams? Would Israel have lifted the economic siege that it imposed on Gaza? Would it open the border to Palestinian laborers? Free prisoners? Meet with the elected leadership and conduct negotiations? Encourage investment in Gaza? Nonsense. If the Gazans were sitting quietly, as Israel expects them to do, their case would disappear from the agenda - here and around the world. Israel would continue with the convergence, which is solely meant to serve its goals, ignoring their needs. Nobody would have given any thought to the fate of the people of Gaza if they did not behave violently. That is a very bitter truth, but the first 20 years of the occupation passed quietly and we did not lift a finger to end it.
Instead, under cover of the quiet, we built the enormous, criminal settlement enterprise. With our own hands, we are now once again pushing the Palestinians into using the petty arms they have; and in response, we employ nearly the entire enormous arsenal at our disposal, and continue to complain that "they started."
We started. We started with the occupation, and we are duty-bound to end it, a real and complete ending. We started with the violence. There is no violence worse than the violence of the occupier, using force on an entire nation, so the question about who fired first is therefore an evasion meant to distort the picture. After Oslo, too, there were those who claimed that "we left the territories," in a similar mixture of blindness and lies.
Gaza is in serious trouble, ruled by death, horror and daily difficulties, far from the eyes and hearts of Israelis. We are only shown the Qassams. We only see the Qassams. The West Bank is still under the boot of occupation, the settlements are flourishing, and every limply extended hand for an agreement, including that of Ismail Haniyeh, is immediately rejected. And after all this, if someone still has second thoughts, the winning answer is promptly delivered: "They started." They started and justice is on our side, while the fact is that they did not start and justice is not with us.
SOURCE

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Salam,
The Zidane mystery: What set him off?
What would anyone of us do if we were in Zidane's shoe?
Materazzi called Zidane a "dirty terrorist." !!!!
If this is true I think the trophy should be revoked from Italy.
Peace

Monday, July 10, 2006

Everyone watched Zidane as he knocked the Italian player down with his bold head. Some say the Italian player cussed him out with racist remarks, others say he cussed out his mom, which made him mad and pushed him to attack his opponent regardless of the consequences.

Arabic mentalities have split into two sides. One side talks about how foolish was this act and no matter what the Italian players have said, he could have easily responded verbally and might have even ended up winning the game after all.

The other side says Zidane is a hero and while he might have lost the championship he has won our hearts cause he will remain a hero in our minds forever for "defending his honor".

While the second side might seem unrealistic for most non-Arabs, this is ladies and gentlemen how most Arabs think. If you ever wanted to learn about Arabs the second side are how most Arabs think about everything in their lives.

Did Zidane cost his country the championship?
Was his actions justified?
Was that the right reaction to do?
These are question on everybody's mind, but maybe we should look into why did he do such thing? How big of an insult did the Italian player utter?